


darkness, my old friend

by Nielrian



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:34:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nielrian/pseuds/Nielrian
Summary: Her sense rarely manifests like this, only when she’s particularly stressed or tired does it reach for another’s mind without her explicit consent or direction.Tired and stressed would be an understatement for her at the moment.





	darkness, my old friend

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is. Inspired by a conversation I had with [Notsodarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsodarling/pseuds/notsodarling) about Maria’s abilities and what they could potentially do if this show was way weirder and out came this. Also partially inspired by OG!Isabel's dreamwalking power. 
> 
> Title is, of course, from Simon & Garfunkel's _The Sounds of Silence_
> 
>  Enjoy?

Maria opens her eyes to the dark. 

Her body feels light, barely corporeal and half-real in an almost familiar way, more like a suggestion of self than a solid form. Her sense rarely manifests like this, only when she’s particularly stressed or tired does it reach for another’s mind without her explicit consent or direction.

Tired and stressed would be an understatement for her at the moment.

Michael Guerin’s mind is not one she’s ever tried to get a read off of. It has never been receptive to her before. But tired and stressed would be an understatement for Michael, too, she supposes.

Her eyes do not adjust. There is nothing to adjust to, after all. Not here. Not in this place.

She tries to collect the frayed parts of herself, to pull back from this plane into her own, but the oppressive dark is so heavy it feels like moving through water. 

She becomes aware of eyes looking at her through the haze, the only focal point in the emptiness around her. They’re hazel - green - gold - copper all at once and never at all. She’s never seen a picture of what Michael looked like as a child, knows only the commonly told local legend of the three wandering desert children, but all the same she knows the boy in front of her is Michael with as much certainty as she knows what color the sky is or the touch of her own mother’s hand.

She tries to speak but finds that her voice dies in her throat. The more she tries, the closer the blackness seems, choking her, suffocating her, silencing her.

The boy, _Michael,_ looks balefully at her, small hands pressed over his mouth. He shakes his head slowly, eyes bleak and impossibly sad.

He beckons to her, his hand seeming to blur before her eyes, superimposed over itself until it’s twisted, indistinguishable. She looks away from it, unsettled. The pressing dark soon forces her gaze back to him, though, his kaleidoscope eyes the only bright thing. The only thing at all.

He looks at her, sees her, and she becomes aware of having a body. Hands. Legs. Feet.

He turns, wild curls glowing like a beacon, and runs.

She follows as though compelled. It feels like the only thing she can do.

The darkness takes many forms, changes almost as fast as she can perceive it. First an abyss full of stars like pinholes in the sky, then an empty highway in the dead of night, then a barren desert spotted with needled cactus. It feels oppressive, hostile, filled with howls and screams, grasping hands and all manner of sharp things.

And through it she chases him, his pale figure seeming so small at times she fears he will disappear, swallowed up by the great yawning stretches of darkness, leaving her stranded here in this place with no guide and no way out. So she chases him, chases him as he leads her through a horror show of half-remembered half-decayed things.

Faces pass by her like specters, so many that she can’t make them out in any detail, focused as she is on the boy before her. He stops, turns, regards the ghostly beings for a long moment. They seem to swirl around him, pass through him, and he shows no fear, reaches for them with both hands outstretched, eyes shining. Desperate. Helpless.

And then they are gone.

She cannot put words to what her mind’s eye witnesses. To her the world around them seems to buffer, stagger, the darkness around them turns to flames and the thick air seems to burn, consume, engulf. And they are gone.

Michael is running again and she is following, can do little else. She tries to pull herself away, pull herself back, but the very air seems to choke her and she wants out she wants out she wants out -

He runs, bare feet bloody on asphalt as he chases two dark figures, their hands clasped, bodies lit by the glow of an oncoming car. He runs and runs and she follows but it does no good. The figures move away, move further into the light and -

It’s dark. So dark it blinds her. 

Fear takes her and she turns and turns but the figures are gone, Michael is gone and the suffocating darkness tears at her, rips into her like so many razored thorns -

And all at once everything is still.

Michael with his bright bright eyes kneels before her, head dipped low. In his hands, held near to his chest and wrapped in starlight and linens and every soft thing is a glowing ember, pulsing like the heart of something wild.

She knows, somehow, that this is the center of the world. The origin of all things.

And then he’s in front of her and he’s holding it out and she’s afraid afraid afraid - it feels wrong like it doesn’t belong to her, isn’t for her to see but he insists, presses it into her hands and it’s so bright it hurts to look, his eyes huge and wet in the surging darkness.

In an instant she’s in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar place watching Michael’s hand get shattered and a uniformed soldier’s retreating back and through a glittering starlit curtain foreheads pressed together and misshapen fingers reverently touching a missing limb and there’s a voice, hot and bright and soft and  _i never look away not really_  and there are dark eyes filled with panicked tears reflecting a blaring red warning light and  _you are mine_  and -

And then she’s standing outside and it’s dark, so dark it’s crushing her, but the house before her shines with light and she’s drawn there by human nature, by every natural instinct, and as her eyes adjust she can see through the window where two forms lie tangled together, entwined, a dog nearby chasing dream-rabbits on a rug by a fireplace.

Michael’s head lying in Alex’s lap, fingers running through thick curls, large hands on scarred skin and it feels warm, so warm, and next to her a small hand presses itself to the cold window and when she tears her eyes away it’s to the same face, younger and so painfully full of emotion that it draws the breath from her lungs and she can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t -

Maria opens her eyes to the dark.

She can feel her heart pounding in her chest and throat, feels almost dizzy with it. She pulls her hand away from where it lies on the mattress, pressed skin to skin against Guerin's own freshly un-scarred hand. He stirs, but doesn’t wake.

She pulls the sheet over her body, wraps herself as tightly as she can stand, desperately chafes her arms, tries to chase the unearthly chill from her skin. The tears are sudden and unexpected, welling hot and slipping down her cheeks before she can think to stifle them.

She rolls, turning her back to the man who is a stranger to her in more ways than she can imagine.

Sleep does not come easily.

**Author's Note:**

> You can visit me here on tumblr.


End file.
